【英语生活】宁夏葡萄酒的崛起

You know a wine venture is a success if you have the world’s most energetic purveyor of special glasses and decanters, Georg Riedel of Austria, volunteering to take part.

Two weeks ago, I flew to a remote province of China to participate in the inaugural Ningxia Wine Festival. But Riedel got there several days before me – and when I managed to visit the wine producer who first alerted me to the potential of Ningxia, vivacious Emma Gao of Silver Heights, I found that her collection of Riedel glassware took up almost more room than her tiny barrel cellar.

Ningxia is a small, impoverished province 550 miles west of Beijing. Until recently it was best known for its inhospitable mountains and desert, sheep and goji berries, but local government officials have become convinced that Ningxia’s future lies in wine. A campaign started in earnest in the late 1990s when the Ningxia Agricultural Reclamation Management Bureau swung into action, transforming the desert between the Yellow River and the eastern slopes of the Helan Mountains into potential vineyard by determined applications of irrigation water, cover crops and bulldozers. It was clear that cereals and corn wouldn’t do well there, but that the vines that produced a drink the Chinese were rapidly becoming interested in would thrive.

Before then there had been just one winery in the area, Xi Xia King, but, in a sign of the times, it is now engaged in a joint venture with LVMH to produce its first Chinese sparkling wine, supplying the raw material for the 5,300 sq m winery currently being constructed nearby. The result will be sold as Chandon, the international brand name for sister fizzes to Mo?t champagne.

LVMH is the second French drinks giant to have committed itself to Ningxia. In 2008, Pernod Ricard took out a lease on a substantial proportion of one of the first big vineyards to be reclaimed and sells competent varietals, mainly in China, under the Helan Mountain label. Others who have constructed or are constructing vast “chateaux” designed as tourist magnets include not just an array of private investors, but also two of the three big Chinese wine producers: Changyu (which, inter alia, is in partnership with Ch Lafite in China’s first wine region, Shandong, in the north-east), and Cofco, which makes Great Wall wines. Dynasty has been making Imperial Horse wine in Ningxia for many years.

A big advantage Ningxia has over many other Chinese wine regions is that the government owns the land, so can lease large tracts of it, which can be farmed exactly as the producer wishes, in a single transaction. In Shandong, for instance, the land is owned by thousands of smallholders. In Shanxi, where Grace Vineyards, for long one of China’s most admired wineries, is based, the bulk of the grapes have to be bought in and there is a constant battle to persuade peasant smallholders with no wine culture that, for example, small grapes packed full of flavour are more useful to a winemaker than large juicy ones.

But is the nascent wine region of Ningxia propelled by expediency and local government determination, or by the fact that it does actually produce superior wine? It was to try to establish this, and to act as one of a handful of judges in the first Ningxia Wine Awards, that I flew there.

We tasted eight white wines and 32 reds blind and were asked to mark them variously as deficient, commercially acceptable, good or excellent. In my four previous tastings of the best Chinese wines, undertaken roughly every two years since 2002, it was a struggle to find wines that qualified as commercially acceptable. This time, however, I found five that qualified as excellent, and only six that were less than commercially acceptable (due only to the very easily remedied fault of oxidation). Both in the awards and at several wineries, it was clear that Ningxia’s raw material is impressively consistent.

Mo?t may be betting on sparkling white (rosé doesn’t sell in China), but the great majority of what is currently produced in Ningxia is red – mostly Cabernet and Merlot, as is the Chinese way. The wines have an attractive frankness of fruit, rarely more than 13 per cent alcohol nicely balanced by natural acidity and, oxidation apart, were generally both clean and expressive. Although summer days are warm and (generally) dry, temperatures reliably fall at night at this altitude (over 1,000m) so that the growing season is not too short. But winters are almost as severe, and early, as they are in China’s westernmost wine province Xinjiang, so that here too, vines have to be buried every autumn to save them from freezing to death. For the moment the Ningxia government can provide relatively cheap labour, having moved so much of the population from the inhospitable mountains in the south to specially built settlements around the capital Yinchuan. But the continued urbanisation of China will surely start to make wine production in Ningxia much more expensive. And what, everyone wonders, will happen when those leases run out?

I did keep finding one very strong, unfamiliar flavour in our blind tasting though: a green streak accompanied by something peppery. This is the local grape speciality known as Cabernet Gernischt, which my Wine Grapes co-author José Vouillamoz’s DNA profiling has shown to be identical to the Carmenère best known in Chile. Chile’s climate is much warmer than Ningxia’s but, even there, Carmenère can be difficult to divest of its greenness, and in Ningxia this is a much more serious problem.

There are some who argue that Cabernet Gernischt should be promoted as Ningxia’s distinguishing mark, but I’m not convinced, especially since a significant proportion of the plants are affected by leafroll virus which exacerbates the problem by slowing ripening.

Perhaps it’s time Chinese wine producers ventured outside the confines of Bordeaux’s red wine grapes and perhaps Ningxia, suddenly China’s most wine-minded province by far, could lead the way? I’d love to see the Riedel Ningxia Syrah glass, or even one for Riesling.

Jancis’s Ningxia picks

Changyu’s 2011 Cabernet Gernischt from Ningxia has just been taken on by Waitrose (￡9.99, ￡2 off until Sep 23). By dramatically lowering yields they seem to have eliminated the variety’s trademark green streak.

? Jabeilan Grand Reserve 2009 famously won a trophy in last year’s Decanter World Wine Awards. The special “red footprints” bottling is even better.

? Silver Heights, Emma’s Reserve 2009: Emma Gao worked for Spanish-owned distributor Torres then trained in Bordeaux, and married Ch Calon Ségur’s ma?tre de chai.

如果能够让世界上最为活跃和著名的奥地利葡萄酒杯及醒酒器生产商格奥尔格?力多(Georg Riedel)为一款葡萄酒制作专用酒杯，那么这款葡萄酒的生产者无疑已经获得了巨大的成功。

不久前，我经过长途飞行来到中国宁夏自治区，参加在那里新举办的宁夏葡萄酒节，令我意外的是力多早在几天前已先行到达。活泼开朗的银色高地(Silver Heights)酿酒师高源(Emma Gao)是第一个让我意识到宁夏拥有成为优质葡萄酒产区潜质的人，因此我在到达宁夏后也去拜访了她。在银色高地本来就并不宽敞的橡木桶车间里，我看到她收藏的力多酒杯完全抢掉了橡木桶的风头，占去了几乎半壁江山。

宁夏位于中国西部，距离北京880多公里，是个幅员并不算辽阔的欠发达地区，一直以来，人们对它的认识可以概括为几个具有代表性的词汇：荒山、沙漠、绵羊和枸杞子。不过就在近年来，当地政府部门开始意识到这个地区的未来会因为葡萄酒而变得光明，在上世纪九十年代末期，宁夏农垦局(Ningxia Agricultural Reclamation Management Bureau)采取行动，通过引水成渠和植被覆盖以及大兴土木，将贺兰山脉(Helan Mountains)与黄河(the Yellow River)间的荒漠地带变成了适合种植葡萄的区域。毫无疑问，这样的土壤条件并不适合谷物和玉米等作物，却非常适合葡萄。对于越来越多喜欢喝葡萄酒的中国消费者来说，这无疑是一个好消息。

在此之前，宁夏只有区区一家酒厂，那就是西夏王(Xi Xia King)。不过随着时代的发展，与时俱进的西夏王现在已经与路威酩轩(LVMH)合营，目前正在旧址旁边兴建一座5300平方米的酿酒厂，用自己的原料酿造其第一款中国气泡酒(sparkling)，这款气泡酒名为尚顿(Chandon)，是酩悦香槟(Mo?t champagne)在国际市场上的姐妹产品。

不过，在时间上，路威酩轩只能说是第二个在宁夏拓展事业的法国酒类巨头。早在2008年，保乐力加(Pernod Ricard)就在这里租赁了大片葡萄园，直到现在还一直在贺兰山(Helan Mountain)品牌下酿造葡萄酒，主供中国市场。其他一些已经建立或正在建立的大型“庄园”(chateaux)在酿造葡萄酒的同时还主打旅游牌，不仅吸引着私人投资者的目光，还受到了中国三大葡萄酒酿造商中的两家的青睐——那就是张裕(Changyu)和中粮(Cofco)。张裕与拉菲庄园(Ch Lafite)在中国山东（这里被看做是中国最早的葡萄酒产区）有着良好的合作，而中粮则是长城(Great Wall)葡萄酒的酿造商。三大制造商中的王朝(Dynasty)早已在宁夏产区扎根多年，生产御马(Imperial Horse)品牌的葡萄酒。

相对于中国其他葡萄酒产区，宁夏有一个非常大的优势，那就是土地归政府所有。如此一来，这些土地可以通过政府的规定来解决如何耕种并保证葡萄质量的问题，这对于葡萄酒生产企业来讲非常重要。而诸如山东这种类型的产区，其葡萄种植园往往由成千上万个不同的种植者所有。类似的问题也发生在山西地区：即便是在国内拥有极高声誉的怡园(Grace Vineyards)，在购买原料过程中也面临着窘境——他们不得不向那些对葡萄酒酿造一无所知的葡萄种植农灌输一个概念，那就是，对于酿酒师而言最好的葡萄原料无需个大汁多，浓缩的才是精品。

但是对于宁夏葡萄酒来说，其产业的迅猛发展到底是政府扶持与决策的结果还是本身优越的自然条件使然？这个问题目前还未有定论，不过此次的第一届宁夏葡萄酒大奖赛(Ningxia Wine Awards)是一次很好的验证机会，这也是我此次前来的目的。

我们对八款白葡萄酒和三十二款红葡萄酒进行了盲品，评判结果有四个级别，分别是有缺陷(deficient)、可被市场接受(commercially acceptable)、良好(good)以及优秀(excellent)。自2002年起，中国差不多每两年就会举办一次最佳国产葡萄酒品尝会，我也曾出席过四次，但是在那些品尝会中，就算是想要找到一款能够达到可被市场接受水平的葡萄酒都绝非易事。但是这次的宁夏葡萄酒大奖赛让我收获惊喜，有五款葡萄酒获得了优秀级别，而且只有六款酒被定在可被市场接受级别之下。值得注意的是，这些葡萄酒的缺陷仅仅是氧化而已，而氧化问题在葡萄酒生产上解决起来可以说是轻而易举。总体来说，通过葡萄酒比赛以及对各个酒厂的走访，我发现宁夏产区的原料质量水平拥有出奇的稳定性和一致性。

酩悦将赌注押在了白色汽酒上（因为在中国，粉红汽酒寥寥无几），不过如典型的中国式葡萄酒一样，宁夏所产的绝大多数其实是红葡萄酒，而且几乎全都以解百纳(Cabernet)和美乐(Merlot)为主要品种。这些葡萄酒果香非常明显，酒精度往往不高于13%，并且能够与自然酸度形成良好的平衡，如果除去氧化的影响，完全能够体现出很好的清澈度和表现力。尽管夏日温暖且通常情况下比较干燥，但由于产区海拔高于一千米，夜晚的温度能够很快下降，完全可以保证葡萄成熟季节不至于太短。不过这里也遇到棘手的问题，那就是和新疆一样，冬天非常寒冷且来得很早，以至于葡萄种植者们必须在秋天采用填埋法来防止植株死于严冬的低温。目前，宁夏政府在其首府银川周围已经修建了居住圈，并吸引了大批南部荒凉山区人口，这一举措大大降低了劳动力成本。但不可否认，随着中国城市化进程的持续，宁夏葡萄酒的生产成本一定会越来越高。因此，人们不仅产生一个疑问：当土地租约到期时，这些优势是否依旧？

不过在进行盲品的过程中，我在很多葡萄酒中都发现了一种不太熟悉的味道，它有点生青并且伴随着类似胡椒的感觉，这是当地葡萄品种蛇龙珠(Cabernet Gernischt)的特点。与我合著《酿酒葡萄品种学》(Wine Grapes)一书的何塞?弗拉穆兹(José Vouillamoz)通过DNA图谱分析表明，这个葡萄品种与智利(Chile)最著名的葡萄品种加文拿(Carmenère)完全相同。即便在比宁夏温暖许多的智利，其加文拿也很难去除这种生青味道，因此这对宁夏葡萄酒来说，问题可能更加严重。

有人坚持认为蛇龙珠应该被推崇为宁夏的典型品种，但我不敢苟同，尤其是自从该品种的大部分植株被葡萄卷叶病(leafroll)病毒侵害而使成熟缓慢问题得以加剧之后。

也许对于中国葡萄酒来说，这是一个摆脱总是采用波尔多(Bordeaux)葡萄品种酿造红葡萄酒桎梏的良机；也许对于宁夏这个突然成为全中国最具葡萄酒气息的地方来说，是一个在国内葡萄酒行业中占据领先地位的契机。我非常乐意有一天能够看到一款力多品牌的宁夏西拉(Syrah)专用酒杯，或者更甚，宁夏雷司令(Riesling)专用酒杯。

简希丝宁夏之选：

张裕2011年份蛇龙珠：来自宁夏产区，近期被薇柔(Waitrose)连锁超市采为售卖产品（售价9.99英镑，九月二十三日前还有两英镑的优惠）。通过大幅降低产量，生产者有望能够清除该葡萄品种特有的生青味道。

加贝兰特级珍藏(Jabeilan Grand Reserve)2009年份：此款佳酿因在去年著名的《品醇客》世界葡萄酒大奖赛(Decanter World Wine Awards)中获奖而名声大振，其中“红色足迹”(red footprint)系列拥有更高的水平。

银色高地珍藏(Silver Heights, Emma’s Reserve)2009年份：酿酒师高源曾供职于西班牙酒商桃乐丝(Torres)，并在波尔多有过相当丰富的酿酒经验，后来与凯隆世家庄园(Ch Calon Ségur)的酒窖主管(ma?tre de chai)喜结连理。

译者/马钊